A twice-weekly syndicated newspaper column on California public affairs.

Monday, May 21, 2018

GET SET FOR MAJOR ELECTION SYSTEM CHANGES

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, JUNE 5, 2018, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS“GET SET FOR MAJOR ELECTION SYSTEM
CHANGES”

If
you’re voting today (editors: if
running this column prior to June 5, sub “Tuesday,” “next week,” or “June 5”
for ‘today’ here, as appropriate) in a neighborhood garage or the
clubhouse of a park or a school auditorium, you may want to remember the
experience well. It might not be repeated often after this primary election and
November’s general election.

Already,
Californians in five counties (Madera, Napa, Nevada, Sacramento and San Mateo)
are pioneering the new experience that will almost certainly come to voters in
most other counties two years from now.

The
new election system features “vote centers” rather than precincts and a big
expansion of mail balloting.

The
aim is to expand turnout by making things far easier for voters. It’s the
complete opposite of the vote-suppression efforts Republicans push in many
other states where mail balloting has been made more difficult and
identification is often required before voters so much as touch a ballot.

After
low turnout disappointed California officials in 2014 (25 percent of registered
voters) and in the off-year elections of 2013 and 2015, they began casting
about for changes. The new system will deliver mail-in ballots to every
registered voter about 28 days before each actual Election Day, aiming to end
any need for voting in a single place on just one day.

Each
county will also have several large vote centers, where anyone registered to
vote in that county can cast a ballot regardless of home address. Computers
will ensure each voter at the centers gets exactly the same local ballot he or
she would have seen in the former polling places. It will also be possible to
turn in mail ballots at vote centers, just as it’s possible now in most
counties to turn them in at precinct polling places.

The
same safeguards as ever will be taken to ensure that voters don’t cast multiple
ballots. Each mail-in vote will have the signature on its envelope checked
against registration forms. Every voter will have to provide a valid address to
get a ballot in vote centers just like in the old polling places.

And
yet, losing candidates and those who expect to lose will surely find fodder in
this new system for crying “rigged election.” Just as before, there is nothing
to prevent voters or groups they’re affiliated with from holding ballot-marking
parties where they might receive instructions or guidance in how to vote. But
they’d presumably be at such gatherings under their own volition.

The
hope behind the new system is that putting ballots in the hands of every
registered voter will up the turnout substantially.

“We’ve
got to…implement a new voting method,” Democratic state Sen. Ben Allen of Santa
Monica said while sponsoring the new system in the Legislature last year. “Our
current system has failed, as our voter turnout rates continued to decline
toward record lows.”

If
that meant the tradition of the secret ballot had to go, then the legislators
who passed it and the men who signed it and are putting it into action (Gov.
Jerry Brown and Secretary of State Alex Padilla) essentially said “so be it.”
Of course, the secret ballot went the way of the dodo bird long ago when mail
ballots became available to anyone who asked for them, starting in the late
1970s.

Since
then, ballot-marking parties have been commonplace, but they’ve never led to
charges of fraud or coerced voting for particular candidates or propositions.
Still, such outcries may arise now.

The
guinea pig voters in the five counties using the system this time will
determine whether it leads to the greater flexibility and higher turnouts
expected by the folks who pushed for change.

But
only time will tell whether all this actually spurs more people to vote. For
sure, no one knows whether the almost inevitable charges of fraud and
vote-fixing will have any merit. Also for sure, participation had gotten so low
in recent years that a small minority of eligible voters often has madekey decisions for everyone else.

And
whatever happens, bet on computers, tablets and smartphones as the next
frontier in this brave new world of voting.

-30-

Email
Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough,
The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch
It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias
columns, visit www.californiafocus.net

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About Me

Thomas Elias writes the syndicated California Focus column, appearing twice weekly in 88 newspapers around California, with circulation over 2.2 million.
He has won numerous awards from organizations like the National Headliners Club, the California Newspaper Publishers Association, the Los Angeles Press Club, and the California Taxpayers Association. He has been nominated three times for the Pulitzer Prize in distinguished commentary.
Elias is the author of two books, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government's Campaign to Squelch It" (now in its third edition; also published in Japanese and recently optioned for a television movie) and "The Simpson Trial in Black and White," co-authored with the late Dennis Schatzman.